Hello Kees,

 LL>> When Fidonet was founded by Tom Jennings & Co., there were no zones.
 LL>> And no need for the creation of any zones.  Not then, or any time in
 LL>> the future.  So why does Fidonet have zones?

 KvE> One reason was that the nodelist grew beyond the size that Tom's software
 KvE> could handle.

Or so one would think ...

 KvE> There were more. You can probably find it in Fidonews issues, that were
 KvE> published at the time.

Why bother with the Fidonews?  Tom Jennings told us all beforehand.
But how many listened, or bothered to read what he had written?

 KvE> To my memory, it was all about technical limits and limiting phone bills.

Or so it would seem.  Until one learns the truth, that is.

 KvE> Solutions had to be found and implemented quickly. Looking backward from
a
 KvE> changed world and critisizing is always easy.

And what I found truly amazed me.

 KvE> I a couple of years time someone will say there were no reasons for
 KvE> regions of nets, it could all be fitted in one net, just as can be seen
in
 KvE> the earliest nodelist that survived till this time.

I forgot to mention one thing in my previous post on this subject -
It was all Tom Jennings' idea.

"Zones are here to stay, and I do not like coding things twice."
- Tom Jennings, 25 January 1988

"This is my solution; if anyone is interested in implementation
details just ask!" - Tom Jennings, 25 January 1988

Tom Jennings also wrote a brief overview about P4, dated 5 July 1989.
A very supportive overview.

Note that FidoNet Policy 4.07 is dated 9 June 1989.

Tom Jennings did not leave FidoNet entirely, up until about 1993.

Now for the fun part -

How to decentralize the FidoNet nodelist.

That takes real genius.  And I know exactly how to do it.
Thanks to Randy Busch.  With a forward by Tom Jennings.

 KvE> Kees

 KvE> ... As for me, all I know is that, I know nothing.

Be amazed.  Be truly amazed.

--Lee

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